Last week, i expressed my interest in leading an overseas comm. service project, Project Angel VII, which is organised by Science Club. This is already something strange as i usually wouldn’t wanna do/org something linked to sci club for the fear of getting entangled with the politics but i was hoping that as the proj director for a yep, i can more or less siam4 them

So i met with the secretary and stand-in proj director, who went over with me the so-called terms n conditions of the deal. The main issue is that the proj would be getting minimal funding from sci club, like definitely less than 400 bucks and for that, i would have to do club room duties, which according to sources, would be more than once a week. That’s not all, i still have to support sci club activities and preferably, run my team n project in close contact with sci club. They apparently already had 20 ppl or so who were interested to participate in the proj, incl one who wanted to lead.

I told her that i would think about it, but i think seriously, no way i would do the proj, for the following reasons:

1. They do not have anyone who noes anything about overseas project currently. Everything is sketchy, no idea where funding would come from. NYC is giving grants but nobody noes the details of the grants, incl me. Call me a slacker, but i dun wanna do a proj that may end up with zero funding and my team has to raise or pay 30 odd thousand dollars.
2. She seems uncomfortable that if i become proj director, or PD, i may axe all the ppl on the interested list thru interviews and selections, incl the guy who’s interested. Assuming all of them are really keen on the trip, bear in mind that they signed up knowing nothing. Could be idealistic ppl who have the sign-up-1st-consider-later mentality which i had b4 my 1st trip
3. I probably wun consider working with the other person as co-leader because of the fact that i dunno him long n well enuff. Leaders must trust each other 100% and i would definitely hunt for a co-leader from among my circle and he/she might not be even from science. 2ndly, he’s totally untrained, hasn’t led a yep, hasnt participated in one.. now that SIF mabbe scraping YEPs, there may not be any proper training for potential leaders.

I’m not trying to diss sci club off, but then i think we have to be realistic…. if i’m the leader at the booth trying to recruit ppl n this guy comes to me..

Guy (G): So where do u wanna bring the team to? Me (M): Oh somewhere in N.India G: where exactly, wat’s the place like? M: Not sure yet, but can go there find out G: What are we doing for the proj? M: not sure yet, we can go there then find our hosts n decide wat to do G: in case of medical emergencies, what can we do? M: i THINK there will be doctors ard

Blind leading the blind, and no more pirate ships for me yea.. All is not lost though, the club can just call back the prev PA director, he really noes his stuff.. as long as he can mentor the new guy, i tink that would be good.. Leaders’ network n peer support is very impt n i dun mind giving the guy advice, or even need be, conduct with other ex-leaders a crash course for him.. no ex-leader would wanna see him lead a team blindly, without the required tools and knowledge

As for myself, wait for confirmation of SIF’s plans n funding b4 i commit myself to a project, trying to see if EMED’s still interested in collaborating on a yep